Identification

Published titles

English: Paulette Jourdain; Paulette.

Sitter

Paulette Jourdain, associated with Léopold Zborowski’s household in Paris.

Date

Generally dated 1919. Pfannstiel 1956 dates the work 1918; Dale 1929 and the Cincinnati 1959 exhibition used 1917; the Bernheim 1931 exhibition dated it 1918. The difference is catalogue convention unless a document of execution is produced.

Medium

Catalogues record oil on canvas. Surface photographs reproduced in this investigation show a grain and puncture pattern closer to the cardboards used by Modigliani than to a typical stretched canvas. That observation is visual only; it is not a laboratory result.

Dimensions

100.3 × 65.4 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at bottom right.

Present location

Private collection after the Sotheby’s New York sale of the A. Alfred Taubman collection, 4 November 2015, lot 12, sold for $42,810,000. The present owner is not named.

Sitter: Paulette Jourdain (1904–1997), associated with Léopold Zborowski’s household in Paris.

Catalogue numbers

Legal note on MR: This investigation has not had access to MR’s catalogue raisonné; all research here is based on open sources, publications and exhibitions. By no means has that catalogue been copied at any point. Modigliani Project and Modigliani Initiative are marked YES when the work is published or otherwise recorded by those projects, even if no catalogue number is assigned; otherwise the field is marked ?.

Provenance

1. Amedeo Modigliani.
2. Léopold Zborowski, Paris (acquired from the artist).
3. Paul Guillaume, Paris (acquired from Zborowski, 1929?).
4. Unrecorded interval.
5. Galerie Barbazanges, Paris.
6. L. C. Hodebert Collection, Paris (acquired from Barbazanges).
7. Unrecorded interval.
8. Fleischmann Collection, Zurich (1931 to 1939/41?).
9. Justin K. Thannhauser Collection, New York (by 1941).
10. M. L. Hermanos Collection, New York (1951).
11. Private collection, United States.
12. Acquavella Galleries, New York.
13. A. Alfred Taubman Collection, New York (acquired September 1983).
14. Sotheby’s, New York, 4 November 2015, The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman: Masterworks, lot 12, sold $42,810,000.
15. Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei collection (acquired at the 2015 sale).
16. Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5 October 2023, lot 8512, A Long Journey: A Selection from the Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei Collection,
    sold $34,844,510.
17. Private collection (unconfirmed)

The sequence follows the published museum, sale, and catalogue record in this investigation. Gaps and uncertain transfers are marked as such.

Selected bibliography

Book-length publications are marked with a footnote giving a full citation. Exhibition catalogues appear in both this list and the exhibition list when this investigation recorded them in both places.

• Maud Dale, Modigliani, New York, Knopf, 1929, no. 29, as Paulette.¹
• Waldemar George, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, Paris, 1929 (page reference incomplete in this investigation).
• Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani. L’Art et la Vie, Paris, Seheur, 1929, p. 112; presumed list p. 28, dated 1917.²
• Adolphe Basler, Modigliani, Paris, Crès, 1931, no. 20, as Paulette.³
• Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son œuvre, Paris, 1956, no. 295, as Paulette, dated 1918.⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni, Amedeo Modigliani: dessins et sculptures; avec suite du catalogue illustré des peintures, Milan, Edizioni del Milione, 1965, no. 217 as Jeune fille assise (Paulette Jourdain).⁵
• Joseph Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné, Barcelona, 1970, no. 411.⁶
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, I dipinti di Modigliani, Milan, Rizzoli, 1970, no. 333, dated 1919, as Paulette Jourdain.⁷
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Françoise Cachin, Tout l’œuvre peint de Modigliani, Paris, 1972, no. 333.⁷
• Carol Mann, Modigliani, London, Thames and Hudson, 1980, p. 199.⁸
• Alberto Maiolino, Modigliani vivo, Turin, Fagola, 1981, p. 75.
• June Rose Castieau-Barrielle, Paris, ACR, 1987, p. 202.⁹
• Christian Parisot, Catalogue raisonné Modigliani, 1991, no. 20/1919.¹⁰
• Osvaldo Patani, Catalogo generale, 1991–94, no. 345, dated 1919.¹¹
• Mason Klein, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, The Jewish Museum, 2004–2005, p. 164, pl. 80.¹²
• Simonetta Fraquelli, Modigliani and His Models, Royal Academy of Arts, 2006, no. 50, p. 137.¹³
• Victoria Soto Caba, Madrid, Libsa, 2007.¹⁴
• Nancy Ireson and Emma Lewis, Modigliani, London, Tate, 2017, pp. 178–179.¹⁵

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Marcel Bernheim (Bernheim-Jeune), retrospective, 1931, no. 22 (dated 1918).
• San Francisco, Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate International Exhibition, 1939.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• New York, Museum of Modern Art, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• New York, Museum of Modern Art, 20th Century Painting, 1951.
• Cincinnati, The Contemporary Arts Center, 1959, no. 17 (dated 1917); Chicago Arts Club and Milwaukee Art Center, 1959.
• New York, Acquavella Galleries, XIX & XX Century Master Paintings, 1983, no. 11.
• New York, The Jewish Museum, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2004.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, Modigliani and His Models, 2006, no. 50.
• London, Tate Modern, Modigliani, 2017–2018.
• Shanghai, Long Museum, Being in the World – The Tenth Anniversary of The Long Museum, Nov. 2022–Feb. 2023, p. 36

Notes

Listed as no. 298 in the D’Atri papers, as Paulette, dated 1919, Paris; provenance Fleischmann > Hodebert > Guillaume (order as given in that file).

Photographs in this investigation are offered as evidence that the support may be cardboard rather than canvas, and that small contrasting dabs on the chair match a device used on other late portraits. Both points remain observations from photographs.
Technical observation from photographs — not a conservation or laboratory finding. Sotheby's catalogues identify the support as canvas.

The original page of this investigation marked several fields as still being checked. The facts above are those already published; where the sources disagree, both readings are given.